Cryptocartography- Tarot Obscura Deck

The Tarot Obscura is a complete 78 card tarot with hand-drawn and inked illustrations I made in 2023. It is in the traditional tarot format with full Major and Minor Arcana, and also includes a guidebook and tarot box.

These cards are intricately designed in an occult, gothic style with the figures portrayed as skeletons. The deck combines the classic archetypal symbols of the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck with numerous elements of lithography, medieval woodcuts, engravings, and astrological diagrams. Many elements of the deck are also in the spirit of collections of work such as the Emblemata Nova, Memento Mori etchings, and specifically the works of Albrecht Dürer, Paul Gustave Doré, and Hans Holbein the Younger.

The deck is designed to be usable by both beginners and advanced tarot readers, with classic designs clearly communicated in each card, but also with layers of meaningful iconography and design.

• Second Edition Deck
• Standard size cards: 2.75 X 4.75 inches
• The deck has SQUARE CORNERS. This was a choice to be in the spirit of past antique decks and their reprints, which frequently also have square corners.
• Printed on heavy 150# cardstock through Smartpress. 
• The front of each card is a beige background with dark ink, and the back of each card is black with a beige outer border.
  
• Sturdy presentation box
  
• 16-page guidebook with further background on the text and interpretations of each card.

Cryptocartography by Colorado Springs Artist Alexander Burden